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Thanks for the comment. I've been in this gig for a while now and I regularly talk to an awful lot of podcasters and networks. The fact is that there is lots of money in podcasting, just not for the podcasters. Lots of hosts and advertising services and what have you are being showered with money from VCs, but very, very few actual podcasters are making money.

I should also clarify when I say "no money" I mean nothing significant. I would count making anything less than a couple of hundred bucks a month as "no money".

I guess you are right. But the point I want to make is that podcasters have to find content that is 'sellable' online the beauty is that you need to charge relatively little per issue and have lots of members so you end up having money.

Where do I get free music tracks that you can put on the start of your podcast, some of the ones I've been hearing have some funky trance-like beats, I'd like to do that one day.

There's a few places that offer 'podsafe' music, which is music licensed for use on podcasts. Doing a Google search for "podsafe music" will turn up some clues for you. I think there's actually one place called the Podsafe Music Network or something like that. Creative Commons and Magnatune are a couple of other places.

Using a song in a podcast is one thing, but if you want to rip it up and only use a bit of it as an intro or outro, then ensure you ask the license holder if that's OK. Some artists are Ok with using entire songs, but not cutting it up for that.

We paid for our intros and bumpers from a guy named Bob Taylor. You can find him on Radio Daddy. There's actually a lot of voice over guys and gals on Radio Daddy so if you're not adverse to paying a bit for original work, that's a great place to look. Watch the prices, though. Bob charges $12 per sound clip which is pretty reasonable. I went to Interactive Voices once to get a quote on a 20-second intro clip and the quotes I was getting were in the hundreds of dollars. Little too rich for my blood.

I guess you are right. But the point I want to make is that podcasters have to find content that is 'sellable' online the beauty is that you need to charge relatively little per issue and have lots of members so you end up having money.

Is a bit like pay per view.

I think these guys in seventhings.com are doing quite well out of it.

rafa

I keep an eye on podvertising with intense curiosity. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but yes - there are a lot of interesting models out there that people are trying out.

If you want to record Skype conversations on a Mac take a look at Ecamm's Call Recorder (http://www.ecamm.com/mac/callrecorder/). Records the conversation as a QuickTime movie, each "end" of the conversation on a separate track.
Quality seems to be excellent and it's really easy to use. It also comes with an additional tool to convert to .mp3.
Downside is that this mixes the two tracks - if you want access to them seperately then you have have QuickTime Pro (US$29.95).

Also, for decent Skype recordings you must have good broadband connections at both ends.

Great article -- here's a question is there a tool out there that tracks statistics of how many people download your podcast ... and how many people actually listen to the podcast? There seems to be a need for that type of tool for advertising purposes.